


13

by crankypanda



Category: Big Bang (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 00:36:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10708473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crankypanda/pseuds/crankypanda
Summary: "But, alas, raising a young lady is a mystery even beyond an enchanter's skill."- Dallben, The Castle of Llyr





	13

**Author's Note:**

> I am apparently incapable of letting go of this gtop-with-kid verse. This was supposed to be a quick, lighthearted read, but turned a little contemplative and ever-so-slightly angsty in the process.

"You can't hide in here forever, you know," Seunghyun said. 

No response. The pair of sneaker-clad feet peeking out from behind one of the wine racks didn't move either, so Seunghyun figured Nari was feeling especially stubborn today. He was about to go back upstairs when she suddenly spoke.

"I'm not _hiding,"_ she said petulantly.

"You disappeared before the hors d'oeuvres were served, and no one's seen you since then," he pointed out. 

"I greeted everyone who arrived, like Jiyong-appa told me to," she said sulkily. "He didn't say I had to stay the _whole_ time."

"I think that was pretty much implied."

"Well," and here Seunghyun could picture her tilting her chin up defiantly, the way she did every time she felt challenged - by her teachers, by her coaches, by her fathers, "he should have been clearer."

Seunghyun rolled his eyes heavenward. "He probably thought he was dealing with his thirteen- year-old daughter, not a state prosecutor."

Suddenly, the feet disappeared. Seunghyun set his glass down on a ledge by the stairs and slowly made his way toward her. He'd left the door ajar, allowing the muffled sounds of music and laughter to trickle in from above.

She was sitting on the floor, knees drawn up to her chest. Sneakers aside, she was actually dressed appropriately for the party. Her dress, a wispy, pale blue affair, pooled around her, and her hair, usually pulled into a messy ponytail, had been brushed into a smooth, shiny sheet that cascaded down her back. 

_("What the hell are you doing?" Seunghyun demanded, horrified._

_Jiyong spared him the briefest of glances before going back to arranging the items on their bed. Nari lay in the midst of it all, her chubby limbs flailing._

_"Making memories," he said as he carefully smoothed the bedsheets around Nari._

_Seunghyun finally unrooted himself from his spot in the doorway and sidled up to Jiyong, who was surveying his handiwork critically._

_"Is she wearing a_ toga?" _Seunghyun asked._

_"Yup," Jiyong said proudly. "Had it specially made in this shop in Hongdae. It came with a cap, too, but it's a little too big for her, so it's just going over there, above the diplomas."_

_Seunghyun stared at the little rolls of paper, each tied up with thin ribbons - indigo blue, Seoul National University's color - that formed a "3" next to Nari._

_"Because she's three months old today," Jiyong explained. "It's a milestone."_

_"Which you decided to commemorate by turning her into - " Seunghyun casted around for the right words, "a graduation-themed flatlay."_

_Jiyong nodded gleefully. "She's an infant now, not a newborn. She's moved up!"_

_As if sensing his mood, Nari gurgled happily, mouth opening wide to reveal toothless gums._

_Jiyong whipped out his phone and held it above his head, tilting the screen towards him so he could check the angle. "Now stand back and let me take some damn pictures.")_

"I'm not hiding," she repeated, more quietly this time. 

"Okay," he said. He moved to sit beside her, but she quickly reached out and grabbed his ankle.

"Appa, no," she said. "You'll ruin the crease."

Seunghyun snorted. "So you _do_ listen to Jiyong occasionally." But he obediently hitched his pants up to preserve the crease before sitting down. It took a little more effort than he liked to admit, but he managed to squeeze into the nook next to her. 

"Want to talk about it?" he asked, after a few moments of silence. 

"Not really," she said, fingers toying with her shoelaces.

"Fair enough." He eyed the plate of half-eaten canapés and crudités lying on the floor. "How's the food?"

She wrinkled her nose.

"That's because you left before they brought out the good stuff," he said. "Jiyong-appa hired a Michelin-starred restaurant to do the catering."

"Of course he did," she muttered.

"Hey," he said sharply, nudging her foot with his. "Watch it."

She had the decency to look abashed. "Sorry."

They never discussed it, but the truth was that Nari was closer to Seunghyun than Jiyong. Seunghyun figured it was kind of inevitable. While Jiyong was away building his empire, they'd created their own little world at home - one in which Jiyong sometimes felt like a trespasser.

_("What are you talking about?" Seunghyun asked, sitting up in bed to look down at Jiyong incredulously. "You live here. You see her everyday!"_

_"It's not the same," Jiyong replied calmly, and went back to reading emails as if that was that._

_Seunghyun reached over, plucked the phone out of his hand, and tossed it to the side. Jiyong shot him an unimpressed look over the rim of his glasses. "Yeah, you're going to have to explain that to me."_

_Jiyong sighed. "I'm with her at breakfast. Sometimes at dinner, if I'm lucky. You're with her the whole day. In that time, I might as well not exist to her. Or to you."_

_"What the fuck," Seunghyun snapped. "We're in constant contact throughout the day. I tell you everything."_

_"It's not the same," Jiyong repeated._

_"What, it's not enough for me to send a million pics of her latest art project? Should I livestream everything?" Seunghyun asked sarcastically._

_Jiyong ran a hand through his hair, clearly frustrated. "That's not what I mean."_

_Seunghyun stared at him for a full ten seconds. Then he flopped back down onto his pillow. "Whatever," he said, and made a show of turning his back to him.)_

"You know," he said conversationally, "I can see why you like hiding here."

"I'm _not - "_ she protested hotly, but he continued as if she hadn't spoken.

"It's cold, and quiet, and you still get great reception." He counted each reason off on his fingers. "Also, there's a bathroom right outside. A person could sleep here if they wanted to."

"I don't think anyone can actually sleep here," she said. "It's kind of creepy. No offense."

"Sure you can," he said easily. "I used to do it all the time, back in the day."

She blinked. _"What._ Why?"

"Jiyong-appa and I used to fight," he said. "A lot."

She shot him a disbelieving look. "No way."

"I know it sounds unbelievable now, but we were a mess back then." He smiled wryly at the memory. "It took us forever to get together in the first place, and when we finally did, we could barely _stay_ together. I can't even remember how many times we broke up. I think Kyungil started a betting pool."

She stared at him, wide-eyed, as though he'd just revealed some deep, dark secret. To her, he supposed he had. She'd only ever known them as they were now: stable, committed, happy. 

He leaned back against the wine rack. "This was my hiding place whenever I didn't want to deal with his crap." 

"Most people," she said, in a tone that suggested she thought he was off his rocker, "would just sleep in the guest room. Or the couch. I'm sure either of them would have been more comfortable."

"It wasn't about comfort, but convenience," he said. "It was a lot easier to drown my sorrows when I had an unlimited supply of alcohol within easy reach."

"You barely drink now," she said.

"I learned how to deal with my issues in better ways," he said. "Like, you know, actually _talking_ about them."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Nice try."

He shrugged. "It was worth a shot. Can you really blame me for wanting to know why my daughter's skipping her own birthday party?"

She ducked her head. "I wasn't going to skip _all_ of the party. Just...most of it."

"Ah. So when were you planning on making your grand re-entrance?"

She wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees. "I don't know. After Jiyong-appa makes his big speech, I guess."

He gave her a sidelong glance. "You know about that?"

She rolled her eyes. "He left his iPad on the dining table last night."

He grinned. "Pretty good, right? He's been working on it all week."

"It's so long," she said mutinously.

"He has a lot to say about you," he said teasingly.

"It's so _embarrassing,"_ she wailed. "He called me _his baby girl!"_

"That's because you _are,"_ he said, poking her side playfully.

She swatted his hand away irritably, leveling him with what Jiyong called the "Choi glare." Seunghyun glared right back, holding her gaze for several seconds until they both cracked up.

__

_("I swear, it's like I'm looking at one of your baby pictures," Jiyong murmured as they both peered at the baby lying in her crib. "Eyes, nose, lips - everything's the same."_

_Nari stared back at them, somehow seeming to recognize them, even though they knew they were barely more than blobs to her._

_"I was nowhere near this cute," Seunghyun whispered back. He reached out and stroked her open palm with a finger. His breath hitched when her hand automatically closed around it._

_"I beg to differ." Jiyong gently ran a finger down her nose bridge, marveling at how perfectly formed it already was. Her brow furrowed at the sensation._

_Jiyong giggled. "Oh my God, she even got your resting bitch face.")_

"I don't get why he has to make such a big deal out of this," Nari said at length. "He makes a big deal out of everything. It's..."

"Overwhelming?" Seunghyun suggested.

She nodded, fiddling anxiously with the hem of her dress. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm super grateful. It's just...I turned thirteen. I'm not getting _married._ Did he really have to do all this?" She grimaced. "Ugh, I sound like such a brat."

"No," he said, shaking his head. "You sound just like me."

"Everyone says so."

"You really do, though. It honestly scares me sometimes." He looked up at the ceiling. "I once banned everyone from greeting me on my birthday. No reason, I just didn't feel like dealing with all the attention, you know? I just turned twenty-nine. It wasn't some huge, life-changing event that needed to be celebrated."

"I'm sure Jiyong-appa took that really well," she said.

"Everyone else went along with it," he said. "The members, Kyungil and Jaechun and the rest, the guys from my unit. But Jiyong couldn't resist. He didn't just greet me. He _baked me a cake,_ and posted it on SNS. So of course everyone else looked like total assholes for ignoring me. The fans went nuts and the press had a field day. People thought I was leaving the group."

She cringed. "That sounds terrible."

"It kind of was," he agreed. "We fought about it. I thought it was a dick move. I mean, who _does_ that? He didn't see it that way, of course. In his mind, why _shouldn't_ he greet me? Why shoudn't he show me - and the world - how much I meant to him?"

He paused, waiting for her to say something, but she remained silent.

"Jiyong-appa isn't like us," he explained. "He wears his heart on his sleeve, and when he loves, he does it in the loudest, most obnoxious way. But the two of us, we're not the easiest people to read. We know ourselves, we know why we do the things we do. But Jiyong-appa doesn't, not unless we tell him. And even then he might not understand."

She frowned. "I don't get what you mean."

"Think of it this way. I always knew he loved me, because he made it so _obvious._ But he wasn't sure if I felt the same way, until I actually came out and said it. And it took me _years_ to finally say it."

"Oh," she murmured.

"People like us, we're dangerous," he said. "We hurt others without realizing it."

"I just wanted some space," she said quietly. "There's so many people upstairs."

"I know." He patted her knee comfortingly. "You don't have to explain yourself to me." He got to his feet, wincing as his joints protested the sudden movement.

She sighed and followed suit. "I guess it's time for me to go back."

He smiled and wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they started walking towards the stairs. "Don't you want to know what outrageously expensive present we've gotten you?"

**Author's Note:**

> Other fics set in the same universe:  
> [Ninety-Eight and Three Quarters Percent Guaranteed](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5243147)  
> [The Best Special Ramyun Ever In The Whole Wide World](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6023359)  
> [Minor Adjustments](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6350956/chapters/14549170)


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